


mirror, mirror

by mrmurdocks



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Dreams and Nightmares, Established Relationship, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, not nearly enough vampire jokes, these nerds say i love you a lot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-07
Updated: 2019-06-07
Packaged: 2020-04-12 09:20:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19129129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrmurdocks/pseuds/mrmurdocks
Summary: “I can’t see my reflection.”Adam opened his eyes. “What?”Ronan tensed again, stepping forward. “It’s not there. I can see you in the mirror, and I can see everything else, but where I am, it’s just… empty. Like it’s looking right through me.”“How is that possible?”Ronan let out a short, bitter, laugh. “I think we’ve moved well beyond worrying about what’s possible, Parrish.”





	mirror, mirror

**Author's Note:**

> the fic that's been in my drafts for like six months is stuck in editing hell, so have this quick one in the meantime!
> 
> this takes place during/after the Opal short story, so you should read that first (because spoilers)!

               Adam woke up in an empty bed.

               “Ronan?”

               There was no answer.

               He wasn’t worried, not really – the Barns was probably one of the safer places for the two of them. Still, Adam’s heart didn’t settle until he found Ronan, who was standing in front of the bathroom mirror, brows furrowed, practically glaring at his own reflection.

               “Hey.” Adam wrapped his arms around Ronan’s waist and rested his chin on Ronan’s shoulder. He felt Ronan relax the tiniest bit.

               “This is a dream, right?” Ronan said. His voice sounded small.

               “Nope,” Adam said. “You’re here with me.”

               Ronan sighed and closed his eyes. He leaned back into Adam’s embrace. Adam held him tight, and they stood like that for a long, long time before Ronan finally spoke again.

               “I can’t see my reflection.”

               Adam opened his eyes. “What?”

               Ronan tensed again, stepping forward. “It’s not there. I can see you in the mirror, and I can see everything else, but where I am, it’s just… empty. Like it’s looking right through me.”

               “How is that possible?”

               Ronan let out a short, bitter, laugh. “I think we’ve moved well beyond worrying about what’s possible, Parrish.”

               Adam bit his lip. “I can see your reflection. Your mind is probably playing tricks on you. Did you get any sleep last night?”

               Ronan laughed again. Adam knew that Ronan’s lack of sleep was partly his fault (Ronan’s neck looked better with a few hickeys on it, so what), but Ronan’s nightmares had been worse lately, too. At least he hadn’t brought something out of one.

               Adam reached for Ronan’s hand. “Let’s get breakfast,” he said. “We’ll figure this out afterward.”

               Ronan didn’t protest, but he didn’t seem to relax, either. Adam grabbed his other hand. “C’mon, Lynch, breakfast. I’ll even let you pick what.”

               Ronan’s mouth formed the faintest smile. “Fatal mistake, Parrish.”

 

* * *

 

               After an impressively large amount of pancakes (and eggs, and bacon…), Adam and Ronan had taken up residence on the couch in the living room. Ronan had fallen asleep with his head in Adam’s lap, and Adam didn’t dare to move. Ronan really was exhausted.

               Adam was starting to drift off himself, but Opal came wandering through the living room. There were bits of newspaper stuck to her mouth, and Adam couldn’t help but grin. She grinned back, revealing a few more shreds of newspaper in between her teeth.

               “Opal,” Adam whispered. “Could you hand me Ronan’s phone?” He pointed to where it sat across the room. Opal gave it to him. “Thank you,” he said. Adam considered picking some of the newspaper off her face before she went outside again, but there was no point. He couldn’t remember the last time she had returned from one of her adventures without being covered in mud or grass or something.

               Opal closed the back door gently behind her, and Adam’s attention turned back to Ronan’s phone. He sighed, unlocked it, and then began to research.

 

* * *

 

               Ronan was staring into a lake. He couldn’t see the bottom of it, and he couldn’t see his reflection, either. It was just an endless black pool that stretched for as far as he could see.

               When he dreamt, it wasn’t Cabeswater anymore. It was a space in between something forgotten and something just out of reach. It was more wild, unpredictable. Dreams are nonsensical by definition, but Ronan had felt like he understood the workings of Cabeswater. After all, he had been the one who dreamt it into existence. But this new place played by different rules.

               Ronan looked up, and the sky was reflective, too. The quiet, empty scenery around him mirrored back onto itself, but Ronan’s reflection was nowhere to be seen.

               His heart jackhammered in his chest. What if he somehow brought this back with him? This endless nothingness, this space where he didn’t really exist. What would happen to him? To Adam?

               _Stop. You’re being ridiculous_ , Ronan thought _._ This wasn’t even a nightmare, not really. There were no night horrors, no demons out for his blood. There was nothing. So why was fear gripping him so tightly?

Ronan blinked and he was standing in the middle of the black, shimmering water. He remembered the mirrored lake from the cave below Cabeswater and felt panic seize his body for a brief moment. _It’s fine. You’re fine. Nothing bad is going to happen._

And then the water level started to rise.

Ronan couldn’t move. He didn’t know if it was because of strange dream physics or the pure terror that was coursing through his veins, but it didn’t matter. This lake was going to swallow him whole. It was nearly at his chin already, then his mouth, then his nose.

_Don’t bring it back don’t bring it back don’t bring it back_

Ronan gasped for air, and then he was awake.

 

* * *

 

               “Oh, shit!”

               Adam managed to grab Ronan’s phone before it landed on the floor. It had been knocked out of his hands as Ronan jolted upright, gasping. Adam set the phone aside and made a quick check of the room. Nothing was more out of the ordinary than usual. Just a regular nightmare, then.

               Ronan was trembling at the other end of the couch. Adam moved towards him.

               “Did I –“

               Adam shook his head. “No. You didn’t bring anything back.”

               “Thank Christ.” Ronan closed his eyes and leaned forward. Adam couldn’t do much about Ronan’s nightmares, but he could do this; he could hold Ronan close until his breathing evened out again.

               “Thank you,” Ronan whispered into Adam’s collarbone.

               “I love you,” Adam replied.

               “I love you too.”

               Eventually, Ronan pulled back and picked up his phone, peering into the shiny dark screen. He held it at different distances and angles, but the worry never left his face. Gently, Adam took the phone and set it aside again.

               “I have a few ideas,” he said.

 

* * *

 

               “You’re gonna have to pronounce that again for me.”

               “Heautoscopy,” Adam repeated. “It’s when you see your own body from a distance.”

               “Yeah. That happens whenever I bring something back from a dream,” Ronan said. “But how is it related to my newfound vampirism?”

               “There’s also something called negative autoscopy,” Adam said. “When you can’t see your own image in a mirror.”

               “How does that happen?”

               “There isn’t a lot of information on it,” Adam admitted. “All the cases I read about were linked to some other type of hallucination.”

               “Great,” Ronan muttered.

               “I don’t know if any of that is useful, anyway. This is probably more of a magic thing than a medical thing,” Adam said.

               “You think?”

               “What do you want me to do?” Adam asked, ignoring the edge in Ronan’s voice. Ronan sighed and took Adam’s hands in his.

“Help me.”

 

* * *

 

               It was nearly midnight by the time Adam returned to the Barns the next day. Work had felt longer than usual, and afterward he had stopped by 300 Fox Way to see if they had any advice. They didn’t have anything to say other than what Adam had already figured out, but they more than made up for it with the plate of brownies that they sent with him.

               “Mm. You brought me brownies?” Ronan was sprawled in the armchair. Adam had thought he was asleep.

               “Maura’s.”

               “Even better. Lots of butter.” Ronan held out a hand.  Adam gave him one and then grabbed a brownie for himself, sitting on the armrest next to Ronan.

               “Did Opal already go to bed?” Adam asked.

               “Yeah. Hours ago. Tired herself out after eating half the grass behind the house,” Ronan said. “Any help from the psychics?”

               “Their guess is as good as ours,” Adam replied. “Maura offered some tea that’s supposed to help with corporeality, but I politely declined for you.”

               “Well, if we can’t figure out anything else, I’ll drink some of her foot tea. Couldn’t hurt.”

               “How brave of you,” Adam said. Ronan smirked, but Adam could still see the unease behind his eyes.

               “What if it never goes away?” Ronan asked.

               “We’ll figure it out.”

               “But what if we don’t?”

               “Then you can build a castle for yourself and start drinking people’s blood.”

               “Asshole.”

               “C’mon,” Adam said, setting the brownies aside and standing up. “Let’s go to bed.”

               As they settled under the sheets, Adam wrapped his arm around Ronan and laced their fingers together.

               “It’ll be okay. Try to get some rest.”

               And by some miracle, Ronan was already asleep.

 

* * *

 

               Over the next few days, Adam noticed that Ronan had started to avoid reflective surfaces. He had even covered up most of the mirrors in the house.

               Adam had asked him about it. “Is this –“

               “Yeah, because of that nuclear colonoscopy thing or whatever the hell.”

               “Negative autoscopy,” Adam corrected. “But no, that’s not what I was going to ask. Is it from a dream, or something? Is there any chance that somehow, you brought this out and didn’t realize it?”

               “I don’t think so,” Ronan began. “I can take things out of my dreams and into the real world, not the other way around. I can’t just dream my reflection out of existence. But…” Ronan paused and closed his eyes.

               “What?” Adam asked. He stepped closer and took Ronan’s hands. Ronan rested his head on Adam’s shoulder.

               “It’s the same nightmare every night,” Ronan said, voice barely above a whisper. “Mirrors. Lakes. Windows. They reflect everything except me. And I can’t – I don’t know what will happen if I accidentally bring something out. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

               Adam pressed a kiss to Ronan’s temple. “I love you.”

               “I love you too.”

               “I know I keep saying this, but we will. We’ll figure it out.”

               “I hope you’re right.”

 

* * *

 

               When he saw the black pouring from Ronan’s nose and eyes and ears, Adam had to fight to keep his hands from shaking.

 

* * *

 

               Ronan had been asleep for nearly ten hours. Adam and Opal were there with him, surrounded by the other dream things in the long barn. It had been months since Ronan had brought anything back, and the long barn seemed like a better option than the house. There was no telling what would appear when Ronan woke up. To Adam’s relief, the black had stopped gushing from Ronan’s nose shortly after he fell asleep. All that was left now was to wait.

               Opal was sitting cross-legged on the ground, chewing on a piece of grass and playing with some sort of impossible sliding puzzle that she found in the barn. Her worry had mostly disappeared after Ronan fell asleep. Adam was sitting next to her, leaning up against a pile of crates and watching Ronan. Adam must have dozed off again, because the next time he opened his eyes, Ronan was awake, and looking at him, and holding out a wrench.

               “For the shitbox,” he said, grinning. There was still black gunk stuck in his teeth.

               Adam took the wrench. It felt like a perfectly normal wrench, except – no, it didn’t. It felt like Ronan. And no wrench Adam had ever used fit that perfectly in his hand.

               “Where’s Opal?” Adam asked.

               “Out playing with the new hula hoop I dreamt her,” Ronan said. “It never falls.” Now that Adam was fully awake, he could see that he was surrounded by other new dream things.

               “Christ, Ronan, how much did you bring out?”

               “A lot. There was a bit of a buildup. I don’t think it was much of a toll on this new place, though.”

               “So, everything is okay?”

               “Yeah. Everything is okay.”

               Some of the black gunk dripped from Ronan’s chin onto Adam’s shirt. Adam grimaced, and Ronan laughed.

               “Alright,” Adam said, standing. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

 

* * *

 

               “God. Washing those is going to fucking suck.” Ronan kicked at the pile of clothes on the bathroom floor, soaked with black gunk. The shower had washed away most of it, but Ronan had the feeling he was going to be digging black shit out of his ears for weeks. Adam was sitting on the bathroom counter, hair curled from the steam.

              Ronan was very purposefully not facing the mirror. Covering this one up had proved too much of a hassle. Adam sighed and got up, wrapping Ronan in a hug.

              “I love you,” Ronan said.

              “I love you too.” Adam trailed his lips along Ronan’s jaw and Ronan shivered, despite the heat. “C’mon,” Adam said.

              As they were leaving the bathroom, Ronan caught a glimpse of the mirror out of the corner of his eye. He froze.

              “What?” Adam asked.

              Ronan stepped back into the bathroom and turned the light on again. He stared into his reflection. It stared back at him. Ronan waved his hand. The Ronan in the mirror copied him.

              “My reflection is back,” Ronan said. He blinked, and his reflection was still there.

              “Well,” Adam said, smiling. “I told you we would figure it out.”

              “You did,” Ronan said. He flicked the bathroom light off. “C’mon.”

**Author's Note:**

> come talk to me on tumblr [@ganseybabe](https://ganseybabe.tumblr.com/) !


End file.
